UPDATE: The mother of baby Ryker Daponte-Michaud and her boyfriend were each sentenced Thursday morning to 9 years behind bars in the tot's hot-coffee death. The Free Press will have full details soon.

Editor’s note: Wednesday’s court proceedings included disturbing details of the death of baby Ryker Daponte-Michaud, details to which this story refers.

They celebrate their baby brother’s birthday in a cemetery.

Three little girls, the older sisters of Ryker Daponte-Michaud, take balloons, flowers, toys and Timbits to his grave site. They are haunted by what happened to him after he was scalded with hot coffee and suffered horrendous burns three years ago.

They remember the foul odour in his bedroom at their Strathroy townhouse. The oldest girl recalls seeing the painful, deep part of the burn on his stomach during the three days he was dying.

The middle girl, who was only five when Ryker died, tripped over his body where it was laid on the kitchen floor after his death when she ran to retrieve her shoe once the police came.

The girls punched and kicked the police officers who came to take them away from their mother after Ryker died. They remembered him in a white box at the funeral.

The youngest sister, who was four at the time of Ryker’s death, thought he had died from a spider bite. “Ryker is dead. Ryker is dead,” she would tell anyone who came to visit.

Their victim impact statements and one from their foster mother at the sentencing hearing for their mother, Amanda Dumont, 32, and her ex-boyfriend Scott Bakker, 28, drove home the lingering horror in a case of unimaginable neglect.

Ryker was 20 months old when he died May 21, 2014, three days after he suffered serious burns to 25 per cent of his body from a scalding cup of coffee, affecting his abdomen, genitals, buttocks, back and upper legs.

The burns, had he been taken to a doctor or hospital, were treatable. He died of dehydration and shock.

Dumont and Bakker were found guilty in September of a joint charge of criminal negligence causing death and individual counts of failing to provide the necessaries of life.

Through a mistrial a year ago and a completed trial, the details focused on the dysfunctional life inside the Penny Lane townhouse. Dumont and Bakker seemed more interested in fencing stolen property and dealing and consuming drugs, namely methamphetamine, than they were in getting treatment for the toddler.

And in the middle of the chaos were the three older girls, whose names are protected by court order, often fending for themselves or, in the oldest daughter’s case, caring for Ryker.

“I was scared about what was happening to Ryker and did not know how to fix it,” the now-13-year-old wrote in a victim impact statement read to Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance by assistant Crown attorney Natalie Kuehn. “I am angry and mad that my mom could have helped Ryker and didn’t. I am kind of angry and . . . mad at Scott because he was an adult and could have helped Ryker.”

The girls were placed with their foster family a month after Ryker died. Through tears, their foster mom told of their ongoing work to cope with his death.

They get scared and worried when they hear sirens, the younger ones thinking their mother is in the police car or their brother is in the ambulance.

The two older girls feel guilty because they helped care for the toddler. The oldest, who testified at the June retrial, “has felt as though she has lost her own child.”

All three girls have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. The middle girl, aged nine, required residential treatment for a year after periods of being out of control. “I wish I was dead like Ryker,” she would scream.

She has nightmares that she might have hurt Ryker and others about Bakker trying to kill her.

The girls had no mementoes of Ryker until their foster mom collected photos of him from the Internet and put them in a picture book. They often look at it, she said.

His youngest sister wrote that Ryker would be five now. “I would be able to play with him, teach him how to talk and walk, and I would be walking him to school.”

The girls had to move from Strathroy, change schools and make new friends. Moving on is “a struggle,” the foster mother said. Recently they were told they will be separated soon to live with their biological fathers, “which will add another layer of loss,” she said.

Pomerance heard the sentencing suggestions from lawyers.

Bakker’s defence lawyer, Perrie Douglas, argued for a prison term of 4½ to seven years, citing Bakker’s “horrendous childhood” marked by mental illness, drug addiction, possible brain damage from birth, bullying by schoolmates, Grade 8 education and years of institutionalization since his teens. He felt abandoned by his father.

Bakker has 40 criminal convictions, some for domestic violence and animal cruelty. Douglas argued this long record suggested “a cry for help” from a troubled man.

Dumont’s lawyer, Ken Marley, suggested a sentence of just over four years, so Dumont could remain at the Vanier Centre for Women, where she works in the laundry and has been taking courses, including 30 on the Bible.

Some reference letters came from fellow inmates, who said they believe Dumont is innocent and “a dedicated mother.”

Marley asked Pomerance to take into account Dumont’s efforts to rehabilitate herself and her lack of record at the time of Ryker’s death, though she has been convicted since of fraud and drug possession.

“The death of Ryker has had a profound effect on her, a life-­altering effect . . . Her remorse is for the loss of her son. Her remorse is for the choices she made at that time,” he said.

In her pre-sentence report, she laid the blame on Bakker.

Assistant Crown attorney Elizabeth Maguire’s sentencing submission was simple: both are responsible and both should go to prison for a total of 12 years.

Maguire focused not just on the neglect, but also the deliberate hiding of the injuries for three days when the couple blatantly ignored and lied about the child’s welfare.

Maguire argued there is “a reasonable inference that these two hid the injury because they thought they were going to get into trouble. . . . Their behaviour was guided by self-interest.”

Dumont and Bakker were asked if they had anything to say. Bakker mumbled and defence lawyer Gordon Cudmore interpreted.

“No he doesn’t. He’s had experiences in court and counsel has advised him not to say anything.”